The place that you cannot yet know
by blank-fic
Summary: A story about dying and about how Cal and everyone around him cope when tragedy strikes. Major character death. Cal/Gillian, Eli/OC. Not beta read.
1. Chapter 1

Life will take her from you. You don't know it yet. You still feel normal, still feel hopeful, still expect that beautiful future you've helped her build.

Nobody really expects it. You couldn't have known. Life will take her from you, it'll just happen.

You'll get the call on a Monday at ten in the morning. A panicked secretary from Emily's school. She'll tell you that your daughter's been taken by the ambulance, that she had a seizure, that she's very sorry. You'll ask what hospital, hang up, find Gillian. You wont have to say anything more than "it's Emily" before she immediately drops what she's doing and chases after you.

Life could have ended your daughter's journey then and there. She could have hit her head on the way down. She could have aspirated on her vomit and died. The seizure could have just never ended, quieted her where she lay. Life could have ended her there, and maybe that road would have been more gentle for everyone involved. Life could have spared her suffering, a drawn out death, countless horrors that will culminate in your greatest failure.

(Life could have spared you all, but she wont.)

You'll race into the emergency room. The room they'll have sent you to will be empty. A nurse will pop her head through the sliding glass door and tell you that Emily's getting a CT scan. You'll sit down on the cheap folding chairs in the empty room and clutch Gillian's hand. Gillian will tell you that it's going to be okay.

They'll bring her back in soon, looking fragile and small. She'll struggle to say your name, she'll be fuzzy around the edges. You'll wonder if that's because of the drugs they've given her. It wont be.

Two doctors will come in soon after her. You wont need to hear them speak to know that the words that will come out of their mouth wont be good. You'll know, you'll always know. So will Gillian, her hand tightening around yours.

They'll tell you that they found a lesion. They need to do an MRI to get a better look. You'll ask what the hell do they mean by "lesion." One of them will shift uncomfortably. He'll say "we can't be certain yet, but it's possible she has a tumour."

They'll take her away again. A nurse's aide will bring you boxed up turkey and cheese sandwiches and cans of soda while you wait, tell you that you need to eat. You wont taste a thing. They'll ask to confirm your insurance information, her medical history, already in the system. Her paediatrician is here in this hospital. You'll finally think to call her mother. Zoe will take two audible gulps of breath over the phone and tell you that she's coming.

They'll move her up to her own room in the ICU after that. They'll tell you that it's so they can monitor her more closely. The room will have a single lounge chair and a couch, designed for the sort of situations where family doesn't want to leave.

The doctors will come back in and lead with the wrong punch. They'll tell you that she'll be transferred to Baltimore in the morning. You'll ask why. The shifty one, the neurologist, will struggle to look at you. You'll hold Emily's hand and she'll look scared, confused, too small in that giant bed.

He'll tell you that the MRI gave them a better picture of the large lesion on her left temporal lobe. He'll tell you they're more confident that it's a tumour now, and certain that it will cause her severe impairment or kill her if left untreated. He'll tell you that it's in a part of the brain that's important for speaking and understanding, for remembering, for being who you are, that they don't have the kind of specialists needed to do that kind of surgery here. After consulting with her new team in Baltimore, they're going to start her on an anti-convulsant medication she's probably going to be staying on for a long time, and a steroid to reduce the swelling in her brain. He'll tell you that the steroid might be temporary. He'll be wrong.

Emily will cry, confused, and then so will you. Zoe will find you like that, and Gillian will pull her into the hall to explain. When the blank look of shock will wear off Zoe's face, she'll wrap her arms around Gillian, pulling her into a hug. Gillian will allow it all to hit her at that moment, standing in the hallway next to a hand sanitizer dispenser. "She's yours, too," Zoe will whisper. "You're her family too." Gillian will protest, she'll tell Zoe that you're not a couple and certainly not married.

Zoe will laugh, letting her go. "He ran to you when he found out, didn't he? How long did it take him to call me?" she'll ask. Zoe will look her down with sternness and sincerity and tell her again. "She's yours too."

Gillian will think of how it's almost cruel of Zoe to acknowledge this here and now, during the painful part, where she might never get a chance to really be Emily's family. (Months later, Gillian will realize that she'd been doing that all along, far before Zoe said a word. She'll accept that Zoe was right, that Emily was part of her since she first laid eyes on her. It will eat her up inside.)

Emily will have another seizure that night, two of the most terrifying minutes of your life. You'll want to reach her, hold her, but the nurse will grab your hand. "The best thing you can do to keep her safe is to stay away right now," she'll say. You'll hate it, but she'll be right.

You'll barely sleep that night, sitting up on Zoe's computer researching the possibilities, torturing yourself with the statistics. They will at least knock Emily out with anxiety medication to calm the restlessness and confusion.

You'll think about the confusion. Emily's been messing up some words lately, forgetting things, not understanding you sometimes. You thought it was just the stress of school, that she was distracted. You never thought a little absent-mindedness was a _symptom_. You'll hate yourself for it, thinking of all the damage that might have been done to her, just because you didn't know. You'll mention all of this to her new doctors tomorrow.

This will be one of the things that will come back and haunt you later. Many things will come back and haunt you later.

Gillian will sleep on your shoulder, Zoe on the reclining chair. When the nurse's assistant comes in to respond to the IV pump's alarm going off again, she will tell you that the cafeteria is opening in a few minutes at three for an hour, and you should get yourself something to eat.

You'll force yourself to swallow down half-cold pasta and a cup of coffee, taking up bottled drinks, a fruit cup, and snack bars for Zoe and Gil.

The morning will bring a couple of doctors, and you'll finally think to start keeping track of this stuff on Zoe's laptop. You'll email yourself what you've written so far just to be safe.

Zoe and Gillian will leave while you wait for the hospital transfer. Gillian will stop into the office, picking up both of your laptops and updating everyone, and then at her house to pack a bag. Zoe will drive to your house and pack clothes for you, things you and Emily might need.

They'll both drive ahead of you to the hotel and then to the hospital while you ride along in the ambulance. Zoe will have already booked all three of you two nights at a hotel near the hospital, and you will tentatively plan to extend your stay if it's necessary.

Emily will be more awake that morning, more alert. She'll still look very scared, especially as they move her in the ambulance, and you wont know what to do. You'll have to sit up front for the entire trip.


	2. Chapter 2

Life will take her from you. You fear it, but you don't know it yet. It will.

You'll see her neurosurgeon and a physician's assistant in the department for the first time that evening. Gillian and Zoe will be there in the room with you and Emily. He'll explain to you that he and several others have reviewed her scans. They feel that, given the location of the tumour, an awake craniotomy will be necessary. Her scalp will be numbed and she'll be sedated at the beginning and end to avoid needlessly distressing her during anything but the critical part of the surgery, mapping her brain to be able to cut out as much of the tumour as possible while leaving her undamaged.

Before they can do this, they'll need to run more tests. An SLP will do a speech evaluation before the surgery and after Emily's started to recover. They'll take some additional scans, bloodwork, and an EEG. They'll want to get in to do the surgery as soon as possible, tomorrow if at all possible.

It will all seem like things are going too fast. You'll ask if you have time to seek a second opinion, if Emily has time. He'll tell you that they're one of the best in the country, and that every minute that tumour stays in her brain is detrimental to her health and survival. They've already reviewed her case and approved the craniotomy, and you're probably not going to get a better answer somewhere else. Her kind of brain tumour isn't harmless, and it's not just going to go away.

Emily will speak, then. "When will we know if I have cancer?"

"We'll be taking samples and having them evaluated while the surgery is being performed and a diagnosis will be made then. While the final pathology report will take a few additional days, the diagnosis made in surgery is usually correct. In your case it's especially important because we are recommending implanting little wafers soaked with chemotherapy medication in your brain after the tumour is removed to deliver chemotherapy directly to your brain. This will only be done if the diagnosis we make in surgery supports it," he will explain.

He'll go on to tell her and you all about the risks and benefits of this kind of chemotherapy, about the fact that treatment recommendations beyond this initial treatment wont be made until the final report is in. He'll tell you that the benefits are greater than the risks in her case, that they don't get very many chances to deliver the drugs exactly where they need to work.

He and his assistant will tell you all a lot about the risks. The swelling in her brain could increase. She could have more seizures. She could have difficulty speaking or understanding speech. She could have difficulty remembering things. Her personality could change. She could even die.

"And without the surgery?" you'll ask, hating yourself for it.

"Best case scenario she'll keep having these difficult to control seizures until one kills her. Worst case, the tumour grows and she'll experience all of those complications I've listed and then she'll die. Maybe we can take a biopsy, diagnose this, treat it for a while, but that still ends the same way. It just takes longer," he'll answer. "The characteristics of her tumour in our experience are dangerous and aggressive. I can't guarantee you what will happen after surgery, but I can almost certainly guarantee you what will happen if she doesn't have it."

He wont flinch when he says all of this. You'll look to Emily, Zoe, and Gillian before nodding. You will agree, because none of you are ready for life to take her.

(His words will be one of those things that will haunt you down the line, when you'll loathe yourself for wishing she'd died that very first day. You'll play it over and over in your head. "It just takes longer.")

Later, when Emily is off for a test, you'll talk to the PA about what the outlook for the family is at this point. She'll tell you that Emily will probably be in the hospital for another week or two depending on how things go. After that, she might require therapy to regain function, and there's always the possibility of needing chemotherapy and radiation. It's possible to receive this treatment at a hospital closer to your home, but you will think there's a good chance you wont be ready for Emily to be away from the experts so soon.

Zoe will agree, calling in to work to inform them that she's taking a leave of absence. She'll have her assistant look up furnished apartment options near the hospital, finding a place less than two miles away. It will have two bedrooms and cost about $8,00 for the month with the possibility to renew. You'll offer to cover the cost, and she'll treat you like you're being completely ridiculous, because the daughter you both made needs you to be there for her and she can take care of this. For the time being you'll alternate going back to the hotel, and in a few days the apartment will be ready to use. (Later, you'll start slipping cheques for two thirds of the rent into her purse every month. It wont be about the money, rather the idea behind it.)

Emily will spend her free time during that day trying to nap, watching TV shows, and answering frantic calls from her friends before giving up and shutting her phone down. All of you will try to reassure her, to tell her that it will be okay.

That will be a lie.


	3. Chapter 3

They'll lift the fog on her during the surgery. A friendly lady with a stack of flash cards will ask her to name the things on them, to count, to remember short phrases. Emily will get a little fuzzy at some points, and she'll look terrified when she can't make the words during part of the procedure. She will reassure Emily that it's okay, that she's not hurt and just to hang on. A few seconds later it will come back.

They wont tell her the diagnosis during the surgery, but she'll see a nurse walking by carrying one of the boxes of wafers as they're making the world go dim again, and she'll know.


	4. Chapter 4

Her surgeon will tell you the news while she's in recovery, handing you, Gillian, and Zoe literature to read. "She has glioblastoma multiforme," he'll say. Something in the glial cells in her brain went horribly wrong, developing into a rapidly growing and aggressive cancer. He'll tell you that they went ahead with the implanted chemotherapy, and that they'll likely be recommending some combination of systemic chemotherapy and radiation after the final report is in.

He'll tell you that they've removed as much of the tumour as they could have without permanently disabling her, but that's not a cure. He'll tell you (though you'll already know, because this is the worst case scenario you scared yourself researching) that her condition is ultimately incurable.

Zoe will ask how long she has. He'll explain that while every case is different, she's probably looking at around a year, that it wouldn't be unheard of for her to make it two or three years depending on how she responds to treatment. He'll recommend against being too optimistic, to wait and see.

Your whole world will fall apart.

Emily will have another seizure during recovery. You'll feel so helpless, so tired. You'll pray to things you don't even believe exist that you could just take her place.


	5. Chapter 5

Emily will alternate crying, sleeping, and staring at the wall for days after the surgery. The only thing she will say to the stream of nurses and doctors coming in and out of her room is a complaint of how much her head hurts. They'll sedate her nightly, give her painkillers, increase her steroids, increase the epilepsy medication. They'll take a baseline post-surgery MRI, one of many more to come.

You will try to comfort her, but there's no words of comfort for the place she'll find herself standing. All of you will agree that two of you will go to the hotel (and then to the apartment) every night, and one of you will stay in the hospital on a rotating basis. Gillian will stay the first night, and you'll crawl into bed at the hotel and will your brain to turn off long enough to be functional the next day, will yourself not to hear Zoe crying quietly in the other bed.

They will confirm the diagnosis, explain that the surgeon will remove the sutures in a few days and she'll be ready for discharge at that point. They will recommend a course of radiation, five days a week for six weeks, with chemotherapy using temozolomide pills, every day for the first six weeks and then five days per month for the next six months. More surgery might be an option down the line.

Emily asks how long she'll have if they don't do anything. The PA will tell her it could be a couple of months, longer. Sometimes these tumours seem to pop right back up out of thin air, sometimes it takes a while.

You all will talk in one of the family lounges later that day. You'll tell Gillian and Zoe that you think Emily's mature enough to make this decision on her own, that none of you should pressure her into doing something she doesn't want to do. Neither of them will say no.

"What if she decides to die?" Zoe will ask, ripping apart the empty styrofoam coffee cup in her hand.

You'll sigh, look down at the pattern on the table, take a breath. "That's already been decided, darlin'. Up to her to decide how she wants to live."


	6. Chapter 6

When they discharge her from the hospital, you'll find it difficult to believe that it's only been ten days since this whole mess started. It'll seem impossible to compare the then, where you thought of what colleges your daughter would want to attend, with the horrors of the present. You'll know what's the kind of symptom to write down in the journal and what's the kind of symptom to take her back to the hospital for, how to respond to any future seizures at home, how to manage her medication.

You'll have no idea how to help her out of the dark place she's in, holed up in her room. She wont have decided yet, there will still be a week before she really needs to do that. You'll come into her room one night, lay on top of her bed, draw her head onto your chest. You'll want to tell her that it's okay, that she has to fight, that it will be worth it, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, that you'll make her do it even if she doesn't want to. But you wont want to lie to her, so instead you'll rub her arm and you'll tell her that it's her choice, that you'll love and support her no matter what.

She'll look up at you, tired. "If I want to die, will you help?" she'll ask.

Your heart will break again. You wont understand why the universe doesn't shatter at that very moment, why every other human being on earth does not feel your suffering. You'll nod. "Yeah, Em. I don't want that to happen," you'll reply, "but it's up to you to decide if you can do this or not. I'll be here for you no matter what."

The next morning, she'll cry at the occupational therapist and tell you all that she'll start treatment over dinner.


	7. Chapter 7

The reality is that all of you need to keep your jobs. You will decide that at least one of you needs to be at home all day in the Baltimore apartment, but the other two need to go to work. You'll tentatively plan to work Monday to Wednesday, with Gillian working Wednesday to Saturday, and Zoe working any day but Wednesday. It'll be about an hour, hour and a half's commute each way including driving to the train station and riding the train. It wont be ideal, but it'll be worth the comfort of knowing that Em's five minutes from the best medical care possible.

Emily will start doing home-bound studies to finish up her last year of high school, because it is an accomplishment she wants, because nobody can bring themselves to tell her that there's not any point to it any longer. It will give her a sense of purpose, and that will matter. (Later, she'll apply to university right in Baltimore. You'll ask her if she's sure, if she thinks she can handle it. You wont ask her if she thinks she's going to survive that long. She'll be confident, tell you the whole point of fighting to live longer is for a life that's worth living.) You'll allow her to spend far too much money on hats and scarves to help conceal the patch of hair that had to be shaved off.

She'll be tired all the time, complain of a headache. When the nausea starts her neuro-oncologist will immediately prescribe her a pill that makes it go away, and she wont throw up again for months after that first day.

Emily will study, skype with her friends, make new friends from the hospital's waiting rooms (Leah, who has advanced ewing sarcoma and probably less time than Emily to go around, who still attends school and acts out like a teenager, who is 17 and will die at 18. James, who is 16 with a brainstem glioma, who lives in hospital family housing while receiving radiation. He'll go home in four weeks and die in five months), work with her therapists.

Everything will settle into something vaguely resembling normal, and you'll let yourself feel just a little bit hopeful. You'll even take Emily up to New York one of the weekends, and she'll be exhausted, but she'll love every minute of it.


	8. Chapter 8

Two weeks after finishing radiation, they'll do another MRI. The area around the surgery will look brighter, fuzzier, bigger.

Emily's team will recommend continuing the temodar, doing another scan in two months, seeing how things are going. You all will realize that going home after two months like you'd thought might happen was never meant to be.

The lease on the apartment will getting extended, Gil sleeping in your room and Zoe sleeping in Emily's or the pull-out couch in the living room. Sometimes Zoe will go home for a weekend, return Monday or Tuesday evening. Gil will use the precious free time provided by the train rides to manage the bills that are now piling in, making sure everything is squared away. You'll be insanely thankful to have her in your life, in Emily's life.

You and Gil wont have sex during that time, wont touch except for comfort, wont date, wont talk about your feelings for one another at all. You'll continue on the path of denial. Your feelings will seem so irrelevant, lost in the haze of sickness that is swallowing you all alive. You'll be best friends, she'll be there for you and Emily, but there will be a hard reality to confront when Emily is no longer the glue keeping you all together. Marriages fall apart in the face of a child's death all the time, and it will be that much harder for you to attempt to create one under those circumstances.

(You'll look back and wonder why Zoe wasn't bitter about all of this, years later. Gillian will tell you about that encounter in the hallway. You'll want to thank Zoe for that, and it will be like a knife through the heart to remember that she's dead and you can't tell her anything at all. Zoe will have wandered, a month behind, searching for Emily in the place that you cannot yet know.)


	9. Chapter 9

When two more months pass, you'll know what the doctors are going to say before they even say it. You'll know because of the way Emily is forgetting more and more, because of the six seizures she's had in the past two months. Emily, like the patch in her brain, will have gotten fuzzier.

They'll say she's lucky it's still mostly isolated to one part of her brain. They'll say she's a candidate for a second craniotomy, that this time they can cut out all of the tumour they can safely remove and try leaving a catheter to deliver radiation directly to her tumour site in her brain (the last time they will attempt to radiate her brain because they'll be on the verge of killing too much of her), that they can try different chemotherapies once she recovers. It could buy her months, maybe longer.

They'll say that her current medication may have reduced the degree of progression, but they wont be able to make an estimate on how effective it was until they can get her open and get it out.

You'll remind her again that it's her choice.


	10. Chapter 10

Emily wont have decided yet when she invites Leah and a few of the other co-conspirators she's acquired from the hospital over for a film night. You'll take temperatures, bags of medication, and sheets of information and emergency contacts from each girl's parents. The relief on their parent's faces at the prospect of having 18 hours off will make you sad, and you'll be glad you don't have to do this without a team, although Zoe will have gone home again that weekend.

Emily wont have to think about how sick she is that night, none of them will. They'll crowd around the big TV in her room and giggle over a half-naked teen star, drinking soda and eating popcorn, and it will all seem so normal.

You and Gillian will peek into Emily's room just to make sure everything's okay. You'll close the door, walk back to the kitchen, begin pouring the two of you glasses of wine.

"How are these the same girls that are supporting our daughter on the hardest journey of her life while facing their own?" Gillian will ask as she sits down. She'll feel strange saying "our daughter" even though you've all been encouraging her to. (Maybe one day you'll look back at Zoe's encouragement and wonder if Zoe wasn't just sculpting her replacement.)

You will sit down next to her, take a sip. "We sometimes forget that's what they are, Gil, Children. You and I might think we're better equipped to deal with their circumstances, but the truth is we've never walked a foot in their shoes," you'll reply. "Maybe it's youth that allows them to face the monsters, to walk our daughter to the grave that's waiting for her."

Gillian will look at you sharply. Anger will flash across her face for a second, her fingers tightening around her wine glass.

"Don't give me that look," you'll say. "We can't lie to her or to ourselves. This is the million mile road of horrors we're on, and her exit comes before ours."

She'll nod, take a gulp from her glass, and wont be able to look at you again all night.

The next morning Leah and Emily will wake up before the others, raiding the cupboards for cereal. Emily will have another seizure. Leah will be calm, look at the clock. Emily will stop within three minutes. Leah will sit with her on the floor for half an hour, chatting and reassuring her out of the fog, until you and Gillian will finally wander into the kitchen.

The look on her face will tell you not to ask in front of Emily, so Gillian will coax Emily back to the table while you two talk in the hall. "She had a seizure," Leah will say. You will want to lash out, rage at her for not yelling, for not waking you up. "It was over in three minutes. She didn't hurt herself. Me appearing alarmed would have only scared her."

After a phone call they'll agree to up her meds. If that doesn't work they'll look at adding another medication. You will pull Leah aside again just as everyone's leaving and thank her. "You handled this with a lot of maturity, and I appreciate that," you will say. She'll smile at you like there's a joke she's thinking that you're not yet able to understand. "Cancer has a way of making you grow up quick. It doesn't help Emily to know what happened or to see us upset over it."

You'll hate how right she is.


	11. Chapter 11

The monsters will not sneak up on your daughter, they will not take her all of a sudden while she sleeps. They will drag her, kicking and screaming the entire way. She will never make peace with things, not like you'd wished, not enough to allow you to lie to yourself about how horrible it all is.

You will be five months down this road when Emily will decide to try again.

The seizures will have gained variety at this point. Sometimes she'll stare ahead vacantly, just for a few seconds, and her eyelids will flutter. You'll start to count how many times a day this happens, and come to the depressing conclusion that she's having them all the time. They'll add another medication, which will make her feel even more drowsy and foggy at first.

They'll admit her a day before the operation. They'll increase her dose of steroids then, and reduce it again before she leaves the hospital. Eli and Ria will finally make it up to visit. Ria will look pathetically awkward and try to make small talk for a few minutes before leaving and never coming back. Eli wont really try to talk to her at all, this time at least. He will bring one of those magnetic fishing games, fill the small plastic tub with water from the bathroom, and Emily will play with him for an hour until she's exhausted can't go on any longer. She will seem happy.

You'll follow him into the hallway when he leaves, give him a curious look. Whatever it is he's thinking, not even you will be able to read it. (He will come back and visit many times. He wont tell you about his brother without another five years passing and a bottle of some cheap booze being in his system. "He was fourteen. We were waiting for a heart." You wont have trouble reading the pain on his face then.)

You'll find yourself with Gil sleeping on your shoulder again that night, only by then you'll have learnt to take sleep when you can get it, too.

She'll make you start going home every night after the first day of recovery, and send you back to work within the week. They'll discharge her after two weeks, longer than anyone expected. A series of seizures during her recovery, the radiation therapy, and her heightened need for rehabilitative services after this surgery will be the culprits in this excessive stay. They'll tell you that they got a lot of the cancer out, that it was worth it.

The neuro-oncologist will recommend treatment with bevacizumab and irinotecan every two weeks, along with an injection to help reduce her risk of infection, and her usual anti-emetics. It's an experimental approach, and the insurance will fight over it, but in the end Emily will start treatment the day she's discharged.

She'll get her acceptance letter. Gillian will decide to break her lease on her old apartment because nobody is kidding themselves about her going home any time soon, and the apartment you've got in Baltimore is expensive and small and she can stay at "your" place in DC when she's there.

You'll move over Gillian's furniture with her one weekend, and then go with Emily and Zoe to buy the extra furniture you need for Emily to have her own room and Zoe to have a bedroom to use whenever she wants it. It will cost half as much as the temporary apartment did, and you'll all appreciate how much extra space it gives you. You and Zoe will still insist on splitting the rent with Gillian this time.

By the seventh month in, her follow-up scans will look great. The combination of surgery, radiation, and the new meds will seem to have done it for the time being. It wont be a cure, it will never be a cure, but things will look good.

You will start staying in DC Monday to Wednesday, with Gillian leaving on Thursday mornings and returning Saturday evenings. Zoe will transition back to living in her own home, although she'll cover for you some days when both you and Gil need to be in the office at the same time, as well as visiting some evenings and weekends. Your routine will adapt to the circumstances, the urgent need to be around Emily all the time fading as you adjust to her diagnosis.

You'll celebrate Emily's 18th birthday in your new home away from home. Leah will come, her parents wheeling her in this time, watching her like a hawk. It will hurt you to see that. Eli will be there, all sincere and joyful and disgusting. You'll all eat a nice dinner, cut the cake, take way too many pictures, and wonder how many people in the room will still be alive in twelve months.

Emily will work herself to tears several times in pursuit of graduation. You'll be the proudest parent in the world when they hand Emily that diploma. You'll take a thousand pictures of that day too. You'll decide to skip the celebratory meal because Emily will already be tired, and she'll sleep on the car ride home, and even that wont spoil things. You'll finally understand why Emily decided to do it, to create purpose for what remains of her life.

June will be the nine month marker. Again, the scans will be a series of good signs.


	12. Chapter 12

Life will take her from you. Life will have no mercy. It will destroy her bit by bit. Just when you can't imagine anything more painful, when you can't imagine enduring any more pain, life will inflict her most devastating blow. You know it now, but it wont seem real until it actually happens.

Leah will die in the third week of June. Emily will visit her a few times before it happens, but she won't be there for it. She'll get the call the next morning.

You'll all go to the funeral. Her parents will thank you for coming, looking at your daughter with sad longing eyes. They'll look at you with pity you wont yet be able to understand, with wisdom you cannot not yet possess.

Emily will be depressed for weeks after that. You'll fly her, one of her old school friends, and Gillian to California for the weekend in hopes that some proper sunlight might start to cheer her up, that she'll reconnect with friends from her "old life," She'll start to improve after that, slowly. But the lights in her eyes will always be just that much dimmer.

The summer will pass in a series of short trips, chemotherapy visits, planning ahead for university. In August, Emily will have another MRI, and it'll be another good visit. They'll work on weaning her off the steroids, reducing her risk of infection and other serious side effects.

Her doctors will recommend taking a part time load, an idea she'll promptly dismiss. She'll say that she can drop classes later if she needs to, but she can never make up for lost time. They'll fill out forms for her to have a student note-taker with her in class and extra time on exams. She will hand out pamphlets to all of her professors instructing them on what to do if she has a seizure in class, and hope she will never need them.

You'll all adapt. That's what people do. You'll hope more and more, because Emily wont be dead yet, and most days you can barely tell that she has brain cancer, that she's had her head cut open twice, that she goes to chemotherapy every couple of weeks.

You'll hope. You'll allow yourself to believe that Emily might be one of the exceptional cases, that she might live long enough that the magic treatment finally comes along, gives her enough time to really experience adulthood. Her doctors will be cautiously optimistic as well. There will be talk about transitioning out of the paediatric brain tumour program at some point in the future.

You'll celebrate her one year of survival, allow yourself to believe that it might be the first celebration of many.

Her thirteenth month scan will bring more positive news. Emily will decide to major in journalism. Gillian will, despite the relative stability, show no signs of wanting to move on from the situation. You'll both continue to have your lives revolve around Emily, and around one another.

The fifteen and seventeenth months will come and go, and in April you will both celebrate her 19th month surviving with this disease and her 19th birthday. You will be proud of the woman she is becoming. She will be strong, happy. She'll fight to do well in school, make friends, grow. It will all seem worth it. The 21st month will breeze by.


	13. Chapter 13

Life will take her from you. You'll let yourself believe for a minute that it might not, that she might be spared, but it will be a lie. Life will take her from you.

At 23 months the scan will show three new tumours. You'll sit numb in the doctor's office as they review the scans and declare two of them inoperable (the ones that floated off away from her primary tumour), and that further radiation is not a viable option. They'll do a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. You all knew the cancer had never really went away, but it will be something entirely different to confront the reality that it has spread and that you're running out of options.

They'll cut the irinotecan and keep the bevacizumab. They'll write a prescription for steroids and tell her to start tapering onto it as soon as she starts having any symptoms.

The week after that you'll all go in for another appointment. The tumour board will have confirmed their recommendation against surgery. Her doctors will recommend yet another highly experimental cocktail, this time a series of pills taken in timed cycles. Capecitabine, lomustine, and tioguanine to kill it, celecoxib to starve it.

The second thing they'll discuss is the reality that the time for Emily to leave school and to start receiving hospice services might be soon. Emily will cry. You will too. She'll say she's not ready yet, and life wont care one bit.

You'll all agree on starting the new pills, coming back and seeing how she's doing in two months.

You'll celebrate her second year of survival a few weeks after that, but it wont feel like much of a celebration at all. She'll start school again, a part time load this time, not ready to let go.

By October she'll have had four more seizures, developed tingling in her palms and feet, and started to get fuzzy again. The MRI will show that everything's grown, but it will be too soon to make a call to discontinue the drugs, to search for a new special cocktail. They'll up the steroids, start her on some antibiotics to be on the safe side.


	14. Chapter 14

December will be month 27. The MRI will look worse. Emily have had seven seizures since the last appointment. She wont be willing to tolerate the tingling from the drugs any longer. They'll drop the capecitabine, lomustine, and tioguanine, and add daily imatinib and hydroxyurea pills. It will be a different plan of attack, a different angle to try and stop or at least reduce the relentless progress of the monster in Emily's brain that will be crowding her out. They'll up the seizure meds.

Those pills will be much more tolerable. After the holiday, Emily will wean down to just one class at a time, and one of you will go with her to each lesson. It will seem so senseless, because you'll know that she's not going to graduate, that this won't be a story with a happy ending. But you'll give her what she wants, and what she'll want is not to die until the actual moment of her death.

In February they'll say that it finally looks like the progression has halted for the time being. They will remind you that this doesn't mean Emily is well, because the amount of space the cancer is taking up in her brain and the amount of swelling all of it is causing is still harming her, can still be what kills her. It'll be a good sign for the time being, but they wont want anyone to be under any illusions that Emily might fully recover.

Eli will visit two or three times a week now. He'll help Emily with her homework, bring her films, play games with her. It will give you all a chance to get out of the house, to breathe. She'll always seem so happy to see him. After she's gone to bed one night and he's heading out the door, you'll ask him why the frequency of his visits has increased so dramatically.

Eli will give you a look that he gives when he's remembering something. "I'm good at this part," he will say.

You'll scrutinize his face for answers even before you speak. "What part?"

He'll already be walking out the door, not wanting you to see him, when he answers. "The end."


	15. Chapter 15

Life will take her from you. It wont be long now.

In April you'll celebrate her 20th birthday. She wont smile very much for this one. You'll take just as many pictures, knowing that these will be the kind you'll cry over.

Her 31-month scan will be a few days later. No progression. They'll start her on an oral diabetes medication to counteract the steroids raising her blood sugar.

In those next two months there will be seventeen seizures, two falls. She will complain of a headache more and more, seem more tired, forget more things. Ever stubborn, she will still pass that class. She will finally accept it to be her last.

You'll struggle with work, struggle with being away from her. You'll watch Zoe start to drift back into the apartment, knowing that the circumstances have changed. Gillian will look so much more tired, and you'll comfort her several times when the exhaustion and terror wears into sobbing in your bedroom after Emily's gone to sleep.

At 33 months there will be a little more progression. They'll up the imatinib regardless because she tolerates it so well that it can't do any harm at that point. They recommend stopping the infusions altogether, but say that Emily can keep taking the cancer pills for as long as she still wants to as they might be providing some relief. They recommend staying on the steroids and seizure meds permanently, and offer to prescribe alternative dosing options for when the time comes that Emily can't swallow pills. This time the discussion about hospice services will be real, non-theoretical.

The PA who will have been there since Emily's first surgery, a woman Emily likes, will sit you all down and give you a talking to. She'll tell you that you've reached the end of the road for what they can do for you. It will be easier on everyone if you go home, get the kind of help that hospice services can provide. They'll still be available by phone, they'll still review any additional scans taken and consult with you and any doctors treating her in DC. They wont be abandoning you, just acknowledging that the service Emily needs is no longer the one they provide. They will send her home with newer and stronger painkillers, and hugs from about half the team that's been treating her.

You will thank every single one of them for the aggressive and compassionate care they've provided your daughter up until this point. You tell them that they're the reason why Emily graduated high school, why she got to experience college, why she's made it this far. You'll do your best to make every last one of them cry.

You'll all have known that this is a road with an end, at least as far as Emily is concerned. That knowledge will seem so much more real that day.


	16. Chapter 16

Life will take her from you. Just hang on, she only has a little more to go.

Gillian will call the hospice to get things started, get all of Emily's files faxed over to the new doctors at the local hospital (who wont be able to do much of anything for you), move what needs to be moved from the Baltimore apartment back to your home in DC. She wont terminate the lease on that apartment yet, not having the time or the energy to empty it out, to deal with it.

Emily will withdraw more and more into herself. She will become more and more frustrated at the things she cannot do, at the things she cannot understand. One day she'll look at you, out of the blue. "Remember that talk we had, in the beginning, about how far you'll go?" Emily will ask.

You'll stare at her. You will pray for death. "Yes."

"I can feel the tumour. Not really, but I feel it. It presses into my thoughts, into the things I want to remember. Steals my words. I'll have more seizures. The world will get duller. Soon. I want to go soon. A month or two, before I can't say yes."

You'll pull her into a hug, hold her close. "I promise, I promise."


	17. Chapter 17

Life will take her from you, she's nearly done now.

The hospice service will start sending in a physical therapist to work with her, as well as regular visits from a home nurse. The hospice doctor will prescribe her lorazepam to use when she's having trouble sleeping at night or getting too anxious, and liquid morphine to be used as needed for the pain.

You'll talk to Gillian and Zoe about what Emily discussed with you, and eventually even Eli will find out. They'll hate the idea, hate that it's gotten so far, but they'll accept it.

The hospice nurse's only indication of having overheard one of these discussions will be when she pulls you to the side. "I can give the drugs whenever you think she's in pain," she'll say. "I can keep giving them every time you think she's in pain. There's no upper limit."

It will seem wrong to be discussing this with her. It will seem wrong to be thinking about this at all. But you'll remind yourself that this is what Emily wants, to be spared the indignities that an extra sliver of time might bring, that she doesn't want time she's hardly going to be there to participate in.

Eli will start visiting every day after that, helping you all care for Emily, helping Emily stay happy. They wont play together as much any longer, because it will be too hard on Emily. Instead he'll bring films, or read her interesting books, chat away at her when she needs it. He too will not flinch.

The seizures will start to add up. You'll stop counting.

You and Zoe will take a leave of absence from work. Gillian will start going in only part time, because that ship needs a captain even now.

The five of you will plan the funeral in that next week, Emily wont want a religious service, and she will request to be promptly buried in a simple casket. She'll pick out the cemetery, the plot, even the gravestone, knowing that she wont be around to use a single one of them.

Your lives will revolve around taking care of her more than you could have possibly imagined in the earlier days. It will be exhausting. The hospice services will provide some relief, but only just enough to keep you from going over the edge.

She'll start to have trouble swallowing, which will prompt discontinuing all of her cancer treatments. The pharmacy will accidentally fill them the next time you go to pick up her prescriptions, and you will cry in front of the pharmacy technician who will rush to find the pharmacist and then look absolutely stricken when you explain that a mistake has been made.


	18. Chapter 18

Life will take her from you. Soon.

In the first week of August, her 35th, Emily will start to have trouble breathing. When you and Gillian find her like that, she'll reach for you, her fingers weakly pulling at the fabric of your shirt. "I'm not ready," she'll say, "but now."

Gillian will start crying, and then you will. You'll search for answers on her face. "I need you to be clear with me, love. You want to die now?" You will hate yourself for asking that. She will nod. You will see the terror on her face, the acceptance.

You'll call Zoe and Eli and merely tell them that Emily seems to be declining and that they ought to come. You will call the hospice and tell them that Emily is having trouble breathing and that you need your nurse. All of you will comfort her, with complete nonsense, with absolute lies. Zoe and Eli will race through the door before the nurse even gets there.

She'll tell you that she's scared. You'll promise her again that you'll all be there for her.

The look on her face when you say that will haunt you for the rest of your life. She will look happy, like the thought she'll be having is one of the only remaining comforts in her life, like it above all else matters. She'll shake her head, two weak jerks side to side. "You can't come."

Emily's nurse will arrive, listen to her chest, document the congestion and the wheezing. She'll ask for you and Zoe to consent to her administering pain relief. You will.

Emily will seem calmer, more relaxed after that first dose, not fighting to breathe as hard any longer. You'll follow through four times, complaining that she still seems to be in pain. You'll doubt yourself every step of the way, feel like a monster, but it will be a lie that you're all complicit in. Nobody will try to stop you. Emily's nurse will dutifully administer the medication, documenting her reasoning along the way. After the second dose, she will tell you that it wouldn't have been very long now all the same. A couple of weeks of torture for all of you. Then she will administer the third dose.

Emily will slip into unconsciousness. Her breathing will slow down. You'll look to see something, anything, on her face, terrified that she might be in pain. Her face will be perfectly neutral, perfectly quiet.

Life will take her from you. Emily will just stop.


	19. Chapter 19

They'll take her body away in an hour. You'll alternate between blank shock and tears, although nobody will actually be surprised at what's happened. You'll have the horrible thought that you're glad she had a good death.

You wont sleep that night. You'll be so fucking numb.

Eli will sleep on your couch because you can't trust him to drive himself home. The ghosts in his eyes will look so familiar.

You'll cry when the sun rises, because it hurts so much.

The hospice will call Zoe with their condolences, and to remind you all that they're going to stay available whenever you need them.

You'll bury Emily the next day. The sun will be unbearably bright over her grave, over the whole cemetery. Emily's schoolmates, half your office, two of her doctors, and Leah's parents will be there. You'll finally understand what you saw on their faces when it was their daughter that was being lowered into the ground.


	20. Chapter 20

It will be difficult. It will be difficult to focus on work, to try to heal, to try to talk to people about your feelings. You'll mostly talk to Gillian, because you can trust her, because she's been there with you every step of the way. You'll talk together, about Emily's life before the illness, and your memories of when she was younger, about how you're coping.

You'll show Gillian all of the pictures and videos of Emily before Gillian knew her, when she was still the baby that Gillian could never have. It will hurt you to think that she doesn't get to have those memories, but watching Emily grow up will help her heal.

Zoe will detach from you. She wont go back to work after it happens, will hide away. You'll try to reach out to her, but some part of you will know that she's already in that place for the inbetween. (It will only come as a partial surprise when you get the call from the police. They'll find her in her bed, a picture of Emily when she was four on her lap, and a gunshot wound in her head. You wont blame yourself for this too much, because you wont have enough left in yourself to feel guilt for anything more.)

You'll find meaning. That's what humans do, try and find meaning in the meaningless.

A year will pass. Gillian will still be around, the Baltimore apartment long since cleared out. There wont be any talk of her moving on, because you'll grow closer, understand one another.

Gillian will talk you into attending a support group for bereaved parents. In a way it will help you to see that others suffer as you do. It will help to know that some of them manage to go on with their lives.

You'll get involved in fund-raising. You will use Emily's face and Emily's story to try and spare others from her fate. It will help, make it feel like she's not entirely gone. It wont give her death purpose, but it will give you purpose.

Two years after his drunken confession to you, Loker and his partner will start fostering medically fragile children. You'll ask him one day why that's the path he chose, and he'll tell you that it's the one he's good at.

You'll never have more children. You and Gillian will discuss it for a while, the idea of fostering or adopting. She will tell you that she can't lose another one.

Life wont ever be the same. There will always be a void in your life, the spot where Emily ought to be. But you will grow, adapt, learn to work around the pain.

(Twenty six years after Emily's death, life will come and find you. You'll be happy, will imagine Emily somewhere out there in the unknown, and that maybe you can find her.)


End file.
